1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a terminal fitting to be crimped to a wire including a core formed by putting a plurality of strands together.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, aluminum wires have been used for the purpose of weight reduction and the like also in the field of automotive wiring harnesses and the like. An aluminum wire is, for example, structured such that a core formed by twisting a plurality of aluminum strands is covered by an insulation coating, and a terminal fitting is generally connected to an end of the wire when the wire is assembled into a wiring harness. Specifically, an end of the coating of the aluminum wire is removed to expose an end of the core, a wire barrel (wire connecting portion) provided on the terminal fitting is crimped to the exposed end of the core, and an insulation barrel provided behind the wire barrel is crimped and connected to an end of the remaining insulation coating (see, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2005-50736). Such a terminal fitting is formed by press-working a metal plate with good electrical conductivity.
However, since the wire barrel is crimped such that the tips thereof are bent inwardly and pushed into between the twisted strands while being butted against each other in the above terminal fitting, contact parts of the wire barrel are rounded and a clearance is easily formed between these. If a waterproofing treatment is performed by covering the wire barrel with a resin material, the resin material enters the clearance to thicken the resin material and the resin material cannot have a uniform thickness as a whole. Even if the waterproofing treatment is applied by covering the wire barrel by a heat shrinkable tube or the like instead of the resin material, the contact parts of the wire barrel cannot be covered without any clearance by the heat shrinkable tube, wherefore waterproofing performance is reduced.
The present invention was completed based on the above situation and aims to reduce a clearance formed at contact parts of a wire barrel.